Juggling two demanding jobs, Anthony “A.J.” Marotta is no stranger to successful time management.

“I try my best to set a schedule,” said Marotta, an agent with the Phyllis Browning Co. and a manager of three restaurants. “I make the most of my time. I have a block open between 1 and 2 p.m.’”

Being in the business for more than a year, Marotta has been able to keep up the pace of the real estate industry. However, a series of closings during one week in June put his skills to the test.

In early May, Marotta worked with a couple who were first-time homebuyers. “The house they found was on the market for four days and we were the second offer,” Marotta said. “We did an extended closing to give the owners enough time to look for another home.”

Marotta scheduled that closing date for June 22. Two weeks after meeting the couple, he met another client looking for a home.

“I soon worked with another client and ended up making an offer on a house,” he said. “But this time around, the owners wanted a quick close.”

Marotta penciled in his new clients in for a June 25th closing. In addition to closely scheduling both closing dates, Marotta had been contemplating his own real estate move.

“I was bouncing around on whether I should buy a home or lease an apartment and save money,” he said. “But I decided to buy, so the third closing was my home. And I scheduled it on June 26 on purpose.”

Marotta said it is tough to juggle the stressful careers of food service and real estate, but it was extremely pressing to finish three closings on three consecutive business days.

“I kept saying to myself, ‘I wish I had an assistant,’” he said. “At times, it got confusing. I’d come back from seeing my client and dealing with some paperwork and think, ‘Which house is with what title company?’”

Marotta explained the hectic days taught him how to keep organized in a quick fashion. At one point, the flow of paperwork and meetings reached a manageable pace.

“It was lots of paperwork, but at the same time, I was finishing one contract after another; it was like being in the zone,” he said. “And also, I’m living a double life as manager of restaurants. It keeps me moving.”

The last week of June ended smoothly for Marotta with three successful closings. Having experienced such a crunch in his young real estate career, Marotta said these moments only make him a better agent.

“I try to manage my time the best I can because I really enjoy being a Realtor,” he said. “It makes me happy to help someone find a house that they truly want. It’s such a good feeling.”

Trusting your real estate agent is arguably the most vital ingredient when creating a successful transaction. It’s the strongest factor in keeping the client focused and the closing on track.

In March, Re/Max Access agent Kristin Moran was working with her good friend Leti Sterneckert and her husband Kyle to sell their Summerwood house and move into a newly built David Weekley home in Northwest San Antonio.

It was a smooth beginning with the house going under contract in only two weeks’ time. The Sterneckerts were pleased about its quick prospect.

“It was too good to be true. The buyers didn’t want an inspection, survey or an option period,” Leti Sterneckert said. “I was naive. I had never sold a house before, and this was my first home that I lived in for 13 years. But I was relieved having the house off the market and under contract.”

Nonetheless, the couple worried about the pace of closing since their new home was not ready. To remedy the situation, they decided to give the potential buyers a longer close time. But when it came time to close, the buyers weren’t ready to place their down payment.

“They wanted to extend the time for about two weeks,” Moran said.

“After that two weeks, they said they needed more time. So, we decided not to extend with them and place the house back on the market.”

Sterneckert and her husband were disappointed and soured on the real estate process as a whole.

“That fallout was heartbreaking,” she said. “At that point, we took our house off the market for 60 days. There was poor communication with the buyers.”

What seemed to be an advantage turned into a drawback as the Sterneckerts worried about the possibility of having two mortgages once their new home was completed. And, they had to go through the uncertainties involved in listing a home.

“I know the worrying was driving Leti crazy,” Moran said. “I just told them that you have to take your emotions out, look at the facts and make a decision going forward. You have to be in that frame of mind that just because you may have a buyer and pre-approval, a million things can still happen.”

Fortunately, after the couple relisted the house 60 days after pulling it off the market, they found another buyer in less than two weeks.

Also, they were able to negotiate with David Weekley Homes for a two-week extension.

“With the new buyer wanting to close mid-July, we negotiated a closing for the end of June so we wouldn’t have too much time after their new build,” Moran said. “If this wasn’t the case, that two weeks would have killed them.”

Moran said, in hindsight, the fallout with the first group of buyers actually placed the Sterneckerts on schedule to move into their new home.

“It worked out in the end. We actually finished it a little bit backwards,” she said about the process. “We closed on the new build on a Tuesday and closed on the old home on Wednesday.”

Although their listing time was relatively short, Sterneckert said she was still nervous whether their home would ever sell. But she was constantly reassured by her close friend that her story would have a good ending.

“You want to make your home museum-ready for show, and I was always thinking, ‘Maybe today, this buyer will be the one.’ or ‘Should we lower our sale price?’ It was just draining,” she said. “Kristin would keep saying ‘Trust me, trust me, trust me.’ She was confident that the sale would happen. And she was right.”

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